Education minister says voters must decide if gender equality an issue of importance when choosing a right-wing party

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Ilan Ben Zion
Ilan Ben Zion is a news editor at The Times of Israel. He holds a Masters degree in Diplomacy from
… [More]Tel Aviv University and an Honors Bachelors degree from the University of Toronto in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, Jewish Studies, and English. [Less]

The Likud party adopted a new campaign strategy to stanch the loss of supporters to the religious nationalist Jewish Home party by attacking its alleged discriminatory policies toward women, Channel 2 reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party was changing its strategy vis-a-vis Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party and, rather than attack its leader, target the rest of the party members’ policies. Its was scheduled to publish ads decrying the Jewish Home as being misogynistic.

Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar struck the first blow on Wednesday by intimating that voting for the Jewish Home party would be harmful to women. He said voters have to choose between parties that advance the status of women and those that do not.

Speaking at an event at Bar-Ilan University, Sa’ar suggested that certain members of the Jewish Home list do not have women’s best interests at heart. “Each voter needs to decide if it’s a vote for Likud-Beytenu, which has five past and present heads of the Knesset Committee for the Advancement for Women.”

He then specifically mentioned Jewish Home’s number four candidate, Rabbi Ben Dahan, who called for the cancellation of the Knesset women’s committee, and Motty Yogav, number nine, for encouraging gender separation in youth groups.

He also mentioned Jewish Home spiritual leader Rabbi Dov Lior, who said in 2010 that female attorneys should not to appear in court.

Likud-Beytenu has lost an estimated five seats — mostly to the ascendant Jewish Home party — in most polls in the course of the past month.

According to a poll published on Wednesday in Haaretz, if elections were held today, Likud-Beytenu would win 34 seats — five fewer than an identical poll conducted a month earlier — and Jewish Home 14.